Kynewulf, der Bischof und Dichter; Untersuchungen über seine Werke und sein LebenMoritz Trautmann

Abstract

LITERATURE RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE the verb; (2) syntax, (a) the noun, (b) the verb, (c) negatives, (d) sentence formation, (e) prepositions, (f) particles; and an excursus on the hiatus; chap. 3, special passages. There have been five printed editions of the letters, the last of which edited by Rudolph Herscher, appeared in 1873 and was accompanied by a critical apparatus. This apparatus was, however, meager and defective. For his work Dr. Fritz has used three manuscripts, viz., Parisinus 1039, Monacensis 490, and Monacensis 48I, which he describes somewhat at length, laying most weight on the first. Living in troublous times at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century A. D., Synesius yet found time and desire to cultivate a fine Greek style, and succeeded to such an extent that he has not only been imitated by stylists since, but is the last author considered in the history of Atticism. Some of the letters, which were evidently intended to be handed about among friends, are written with more care than others of a more private character, and yet in all the KOLtrV shines through, and those tendencies to which even the strictest Atticism could not set bounds, and which have resulted in the Greek of today, may here be recognized. Among such tendencies are: in the realm of the verb, confusion of the aorist and perfect, the imperfect as the universal preterite, the perfect for the present, the pluperfect for the imperfect, and increased use of the periphrastic forms both in the indicative and in the dependent moods; in the realm of prepositions, the increasing frequency of certain ones which absorb the functions of others, which latter finally disappear from use. In these studies Dr. Fritz has added a stone to that perfect understanding of the Greek language which all students of that beautiful tongue are striving together to build. HAMILTON FORD ALLEN. LEIPZIG, Germany. KYNEWULF, DER BISCHOF UND DICHTER; Untersuchungen iiber seine Werke und sein Leben. Von DR. MORITZ TRAUTMANN, ord. Professor an der Universitat Bonn. Bonn: P. Hanstein's Verlag, I898. (Heft I of the "Bonner Beitrage zur Anglistik.") Pp. viii+I23. M. 3.60.